Gypsy, a 6-foot-long ball python, missing in Delta

A ball python by the name of ‘Gypsy’ went missing in the Ladner area on June 30, after somehow escaping from a farmers’ field, according to Delta police. The snake wasn’t reported missing until July 6.

“Unfortunately, officers do not have an exact location where the snake was last seen – just that it was in a farmer’s field in Ladner,” said Cris Leykauf, spokesperson for Delta Police, in a news release Saturday.

Police said officers had been in contact with the male owner of the snake prior to it going missing, on June 20, after receiving reports of the pair sleeping outside of a Tsawwassen Walmart.

At that time, police requested the man and his snake relocate to their nearby minivan, in which he complied.

Ball pythons are known to curl up in a ball when stressed or frightened. In the wild, their diet is primarily small mammals such as rats, mice and birds.

The circumstances of how the snake came to be in the field are not known to police at this time. While police don’t have a photo of the missing snake, they do have a description.